Archives for December 2008

Tazza D’Oro will be open on Dec 24th from 7 am to 2 pm and closed Dec 25th. Our hours on Friday, Dec 26th, are 8 am to 10 pm. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah. Thank you for all your business this year. You guys ROCK!!!

Today (Dec 16th) is my Mom’s birthday. As you can see, we gave her the honor of plunging the French Press at her birthday dinner – she taught me everything I know (in many ways). She happens to be one of Tazza D’Oro’s biggest fans and a lot of the incredible pastries we sell are made by my Mom at the bakery. Rob, Marc and I are very grateful to have her in our lives – Happy Birthday, Mom. Ti amo!

In my last post, I wrote about Pittsburgh being a bit recession proof, the great coffee scene AND now we can buy satsumas – holy crap! Do you guys know about satsumas or have ever tried one? Satsumas look exactly like Clementines but of a different variety. The satsuma is from the mandarin orange family. The fruit is originally from China, but was introduced to the West from Japan. I think satsumas can now grow in California and parts of the southwest?

My only experiences of satsumas have been in some of my favorite places – Pike Place Market in Seattle, the Olympia Market and the farmer’s markets in San Francisco from about November to Jan/Feb. Every Saturday morning I shop at the Farmer’s Market in East Liberty. This week, Tim from Kistaco Farms sourced a few boxes of satsumas. I couldn’t believe it and bought 3 of the 4 boxes. I love any type of citrus fruit -but I really love satsumas. They are sweet and succulent with great acidity. Hmm, the description reminds me of a certain espresso served at Tazza D’Oro! Want to try one? I am happy to share my great satsuma fortune with you – and an espresso.

Pittsburgh’s a beautiful city, becoming very bike friendly, has the beginnings of a great coffee scene and now, satsumas. Gee, I may run out of reasons to visit the Northwest – NOT! But, having a little Northwestness here makes me very happy.

I woke up this morning yearning for the Northwest and by the time I made my coffee and took in the day’s weather – mild temperature, light showers, damp, grass still green – I thought, ok Pittsburgh is rad today. Then I had an awesome cup of Batdorf and Bronson coffee, El Salvador Siberia Pacamara, just like I would have in the Northwest.

So what inspired this post is an article in Pop City, “Pittsburgh remains a good place to be in the recession“. There is a saying in Pittsburgh that “if the world ended today we still have 25 more years!” Yea, so we don’t live beyond our means, we have great hospitals, universities and a ton of small neighborhood businesses that keep our local economy rolling. I believe the fabric and cultural centers of our neighborhoods and business districts are some of the amazing, stand-up coffeehouses and espresso bars like, 21st Street, Beleza, La Prima, Simpatico (Mt Lebo) Aldo and Blue Horse and Tazza D’Oro. Just maybe this is a good time to begin exploring the culture and experience of coffee while the rest of the world seems to be floundering out of control. Just thought I’d mention the coffee!

The shop was filled with customers, spectators, competitors and a very serious table of judges. Turner Dairy was totally rad and donated all the milk for the night and one of the prizes that a picture of the winner will reveal.

Zach won some cash and an apron from Turner Dairy – awesome, Emily also got some cash – awesome again and Braden won a tamper cozy – ? (made by Emily) – there should be a good story behind the cozy but there isn’t!

We also had a surprise visit from one of our original baristas – Abass Kamara. Abass literally moved back to Pittsburgh last night and made Tazza D’Oro his first stop. For the last 7 or 8 years Abass served as a Special Assistant to the Governor and he is back in Pittsburgh to accept a position with the front office of the Pittsburgh Penguins – his dream job, btw. Congrats kiddo!

We are so psyched to see how many of our customers are now brewing their Tazza D’Oro coffee in a French Press. Over Thanksgiving, I gave a demonstration at my mom’s house to about 20 people gathered in her kitchen. Emily told me a story of doing the same for a room full of friends and Amelia called from NJ saying she was doing the same with her family. I love the experience and culture that coffee helps create!

A few fellow french pressers have asked how to make their coffee taste exactly like it does at Tazza D’Oro. Take a look at these directions and if you need more help just stop in – ok? There are probably a gazillion different directions you could find on the internet, but the directions below are what we do at Tazza D’Oro because we think it works best with our coffee and our taste preferences.

Make sure your grinder and French Press are clean and use fresh beans and cold, filtered water.

Use 2 Tablespoons of whole beans per every 6 oz of water (10 Tbl for a 30 oz French Press). We use a little bit of a courser grind – the ground coffee looks a bit smaller than sugar in the raw. Most customers tell us their grinder works by holding a button on the lid. For these types of grinders I say grind the beans for 10-12 seconds.

Bring the water to a boil and let it sit for 15-20 sec. We brew our coffee between 200 and 203F. Add the water to the French Press beaker and begin timing for a 4 min steep time

Gently stir the coffee and continue to add water in order to reach desired volume; otherwise your coffee to water ratio will be off because the” blooming” of the coffee when the hot water is added will take up significant volume in the beaker

Place the plunger/lid on top of the beaker to keep coffee from cooling too fast and continue to steep until 4 min is up

After 4 min, remove lid and break the crust of the coffee, by stirring, before plunging

Then plunge the coffee while being happy (very, very important) and serve immediately